The Seeker
by Xavien
Summary: *Part 4 posted 4/30; reposted for minor corrections 5/02* My initial foray into the ff.net community. In this Post-Hogwarts fic, we follow Double-O Harry as he uncovers a plot that starts out innocently enough: Where has Uncle Vernon gone? R/R would be
1. A Potential Client

**The Seeker**  
_by Xavien_

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Part 1 : A Potential Client  
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In the heart of London, a bustling street in the commercial district was clogged with pedestrian traffic. Though the various city councils and police force had made many an effort to alleviate it, the problem still remained that most of the city's major corporations preferred to take their lunches at the exact same time.  
  
This painful fact did not go unnoticed by a certain pedestrian, a man that, unlike so many others surrounding him at the moment, was not heading back to the office after a quick tuck-in. As the throngs literally pushed him along the sidewalk, he seriously began to regret making his appointment at one o'clock, a conclusion that was only strengthened further when he was shuffled to the outside of the crowd and most unceremoniously made a part of the landscaping.  
  
With as much dignity as he could reclaim, he removed himself from the greenery, brushing twigs from his long, tan overcoat. He glanced momentarily into one of the thousands of glaringly manufactured glossy windows that covered the tall office building the shrubs were trying to naturalize. A tall, handsome man stared back at him, no more than 21, with intense green eyes glinting behind a pair of chic oval frames. The glasses he'd acquired not too long before, after trading his large, round ones in for contacts - and then quickly learning his lesson when a target had thrown sand in his eyes, rendering him blind for hours. His jet black hair was pulled back into a tail at the base of his neck, and also, he found after a quick inspection, remarkably twig-free. That, too, had changed since his youth, him having given up on it after years of vainly trying to make it obey, and letting it fend for itself for once. He had been pleasantly surprised when he'd discovered that added length meant added weight, which had solved the 'sticking-up-in-all-directions' look quite nicely.  
  
In short, he was the type that made heads turn in passing, specifically the female heads, but the truth was he just didn't notice that sort of thing. At the moment, all he cared about was making a good impression at his upcoming appointment, something that rather required the absence of plant material in his hair. And since he'd already checked out in that department, he let his gaze wander from his reflection, up the endless rows of sun-scorched windows to the distinguished bold letters on the sign at the top:

  
**G R U N N I N G S**

  
"I wonder what a place like this wants with me," he murmured to himself in bewilderment. With a resigned shrug, he made his way to the front entrance of the establishment, taking a deep breath before pushing through the revolving doors.  
  
A uniformed man stopped him just inside the door, brandishing a nightstick and a badge. "Can I help you?" he growled, glaring down at the clipboard he held in his hands.  
  
"Harry Potter. I have an appointment with the CEO at one."  
  
The guard glared up at Harry, then back down at his clipboard again. "Right. I'll bring you up, then."  
  
"Thank you."

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A/N: Right, sorry it's so short, I'll get Part 2 up as soon as it's written. This is my first 'fic to go up on fanfiction.net, so I'm slightly in a hurry to try out the system. In case you still haven't guessed, this is going to be an After-Hogwarts fic... and if you truly didn't guess until now, that would make you pretty unobservant, since I clearly said Harry was around 21 yrs. old. :) As always with fanfics around here, please r/r, I hardly ever get to see other people's opinion of my writing since there's only a few people out there that are truly interested. On that note, thanks go to Jim... though I sincerely doubt he'll ever lay eyes on this. :)

Ja ne! - _Xavien_


	2. Horrific Realization

**The Seeker**  
_by Xavien_

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Part 2 : Horrific Realization  
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The guard led Harry across the lobby, a posh, rouge-colored area that made the onlooker feel as though they had just entered Victoria's Secret instead of an office building. "If you'd just step through here, Mr. Potter," said the guard, gesturing at a mechanical apparatus that appeared to be the fabled doorway leading nowhere. 

Harry raised an eyebrow at the metal detector. "Rather tight security for an office, isn't it?" 

"In light of recent events, we deemed it necessary. Please step through," the guard said again, a hint of suspicion in his voice. 

Harry shrugged, and stepped forward. Satisfied that his charge was now cooperating, the guard turned away and headed through the detector himself, passing his standard-issue sidearm around the outside. It was during this time, when the guard's attention was elsewhere, that Harry muttered a word under his breath:

_"Reducio." _

"What was that?" asked the guard, facing him while returning the sidearm to its normal position. 

"Never mind," Harry replied. Passing his watch to the guard on the other side, he briskly stepped through the detector, and flashed a brief smile as he put the watch back on. 

The guard frowned, glaring up at the detector's alarm. It was silent as ever, and he seemed almost disappointed. With another suspicious look at Harry, he growled a "Follow me" and led him into an upholstered, gilded lift. 

As the doors closed and the car began its ascent, Harry allowed himself a grin. That hadn't actually been necessary, but the precaution had put him at ease. And, of course, the guard's reaction had been priceless. For a brief moment, he wondered what would happen if he transfigured some pocket lint into an AK-47, and his grin widened even more. 

Presently the lift came to a halt, and the guard ushered him into a jumbled mess of cubicles and offices. In the corner was a cramped waiting area, and it was here that Harry was left to his own devices. Opting to stand rather than brave the stone-like loveseats, he picked up a stray magazine, leafed through it for a moment, then dropped it back on the table in disinterest. 

"Ah, Potter! Glad you could make it," said a voice in grotesquely false cheer. 

Harry glanced up at the pudgy man striding his way and decided smiling wasn't worth the effort. "Sheffield, Grunnings CEO." 

"That's right." Sheffield extended a hand, smiling genially. Harry looked down at it for a moment, but didn't offer his own in return. Instead, he reached inside his coat and drew out two business cards, examining both. One was constantly in motion, restless shadows playing indefinitely over its words: 

**Harry Potter**  
Auror, Exorcist, Seeker  
Order of Merlin, 1st Class

The other was quite plain in comparison, a simple white arrangement with black lettering spelling out words of a somewhat different nature:

**Harry Potter**  
Bounty Hunter, Private Investigator 

He chose his white Muggle card and slipped it into Sheffield's outstretched hand, returning the Wizard card to the recesses of his overcoat. Sheffield stared at it blankly for a moment, obviously having expected a friendly handshake. "Er, right," he said, clearing his throat. "Care to join me in my office?" 

Harry simply watched for a second or two as Sheffield waited nervously for a response. It was always so much easier to do business when his clients were slightly afraid of him. Once he deemed the CEO sufficiently jittered, he straightened up and followed him down the hall into a large office. Plush carpet stretched from end to end, with the entire outside wall made up of picture windows that overlooked Hyde Park. There was a fancy mahogany desk in the center of the room, and it was on this that Harry perched while he waited for Sheffield to start explaining. 

Sheffield closed the door, and as an afterthought, locked it, hands shaking the entire time. Turning, he simply stared with wide eyes at Harry, glancing from him to the two empty chairs in front of the desk and back again. He sighed. 

Harry's mouth quirked into a small smile. "So, Sheffield, care to explain what a respectable corporation like this wants with a bounty hunter like me?" 

Sheffield's eyes darted to the windows nervously, as if expecting to see people eavesdropping, never mind the fact they were 35 stories above the ground. "I want to keep this under the rug, alright? If our competitors get wind of this weakness, they'll start developing like mad and we'll never be able to catch up. I'll- we'll be ruined." 

"Er, right. And what is it you want to keep under the rug?" Harry prompted patiently. 

Sheffield frowned, his face reddening. Slowly, he forced himself to sit at his desk and start digging through a pile of papers. Harry swiveled on the desk to face him as he started speaking. 

"A week ago, one of our VP's went missing, just up and disappeared without a trace. Wife said she'd seen him sneaking out, probably to welch on his diet with good ol' Ben an' Jerry, know what I mean?" 

Harry nodded, motioning for him to continue. 

"Anyway, to make a long story short, he never came back. Hasn't been seen since, and like I said, it's been a week. And in the meantime, our entire operation here is in a knot because though he periodically does some Customer Affairs work, his main job is Bookkeeping. Dullest man you'd ever meet, but he's a wizard with the spreadsheets, lemme tell you. We're up to our ears in paperwork here, and nobody else has a prayer of matching his productivity." 

"And you want me to find this bloke, is that it?" 

Sheffield nodded vigorously. "If you would. I'm desperate, here; if we don't have this guy back soon, Grunnings is history, period." 

Harry thought a moment, staring at the nameplate on the desk ("Roger Sheffield, CEO, Grunnings Corp.") and wondering why he had that sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Yeah, okay. Long as you sign this," he said, drawing some papers from within his overcoat, "you've got a deal." 

Sheffield eagerly took the paper and scanned it quickly. "What is it?" 

"Standard contract. Commissions, disclaimers, method of payment, the usual." 

Harry handed a blue ink pen to Sheffield, who wasted no time in signing the bottom of the paper, only muttering a little bit about the 'bloody outrageous rates'. As he took back the pen and the signed contract, Harry said, "Now that that's taken care of, don't I at least get this bloke's name?" 

"Oh, yes, right," Sheffield said, picking up a manila folder he'd pulled from his desk. "Here's his file. Got a picture, name, address, family, the works. Oh yeah, and his son works here, too, if you wanna talk to him. Don't know how much help he'll be, though; he isn't the brightest light on the tree, if you catch my drift." 

Harry took the file and opened it. "I'll think a-…" 

Sheffield looked up when Harry's voice died in his throat, and watched the color drain from his face. "What? What is it?" 

Harry could say only one thing as he stared at the file: "Shit." 

In the file, the scowling photographic face of Vernon Dursley stared back at him.

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A/N: Okay, here's part two. Longer than the first part, thank goodness, and a lot more gets accomplished, but I'm not as happy with this part as the first one, for some reason. For those of you who were wondering what Harry was doing at Grunnings, here's your answer. =) As always, please r/r; btw, thanks go to Icicle, C, Anne, skylar, and Teardrop005 for their reviews on the first part - woo hoo!

And finally, I now realize that I forgot this little detail before: 

DISCLAIMER (the part you've all been waiting for, eh?): Harry Potter, Grunnings, and anything else you recognize from the books are the property of J.K. Rowling, great woman that she is... well, all except for London, anyway. No one owns London, one of the biggest cities in the world, except for maybe the Queen of England, or... ah, forget it. Victoria's Secret belongs to... er, Victoria (how the hell should I know??? I may be female, but I still don't touch that place with a ten-foot broomstick). Oh yes, and Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream belongs to Ben and Jerry, who live in Virginia, so I'm not quite sure if they market their product over in England, but humor me, will you?

Until next part, Ja ne! - _Xavien_


	3. Laying Out the Cards

**The Seeker**  
_by Xavien_

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Part 3 : Laying Out the Cards  
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"You're kidding." 

Across the table, Harry took a long drink of mead and sighed wearily. "Nope." 

"And you're actually CONSIDERING taking the job?!" 

"Well, it's not like I've got much choice, is it?" Harry snapped, a little too loudly. Cringing, he looked around the Leaky Cauldron to see if anyone had noticed. A beak-nosed woman was staring at them from the bar. He glared at her until she uncomfortably turned away, and then continued in a calmer voice. "Binding magical contract – I always use them, in case my client tries to screw me over somehow. Trouble is, it also forces me to hold up MY end of the bargain. Too bad I've never had a problem with it before." Sighing again, Harry let his head fall to the wooden table with a clunk. "Sirius, tell me again why I let you talk me into this line of work." 

Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, right. I was the one trying to talk you OUT of it, remember? I told you-" 

"Yeah, yeah. 'It's too dangerous for a trouble magnet like me.' I remember the spiel." Harry smiled sadly. "Oh well. Next time I'll listen to you, O Wise Godfather." 

"I should hope so." Sirius flashed a quick grin over his own mug of mead. "And now you're trying to suck up so I can tell you how to get out of this mess, is that it?" he quipped, swallowing a mouthful. 

"Hardly. First of all, I am NOT sucking up, I'm simply asking for some godfatherly advice. Is that okay with you?" 

Sirius made an opening gesture. "I welcome the challenge." 

"Good. And secondly, I'm not asking how to get OUT of it… just how to get through it without landing in St. Mungo's in the process." 

Again, Sirius's eyebrow shot up. "Y'know, Harry, there ARE ways of getting around that 'binding magical contract.' The ones you're using are only minor enchantments." 

"Yes, but I don't WANT to get around it, see. Yes, we're talking about Vernon Dursley, the man that made seventeen years of my life a living hell, I know. But during all seventeen years, I can't recall even one time that he ever kept his word to me, and if I try to go back on MY word now… it just would seem like sinking to his level, that's all."

Sirius rolled his eyes in frustration, but he was still smiling regardless. "Well, at least I didn't have to teach you honor. So, advice, eh? Have you talked to the rest of the family?" 

Harry sniffed contemptuously. "To Petunia, anyway. Mind you, it took me half an hour to get her to calm down long enough to answer questions; kept glancing out the window, afraid Vernon would suddenly appear and catch her cooperating with me. Unfortunately, she knew about as much as Sheffield: a lot of vital statistics, but no real leads." 

"I see. What about Dudley?" 

At that, Harry couldn't help but grin. "Well, like I told you, he works at Grunnings, too, so I didn't have to go far to find him. As soon as he laid eyes on me, he clapped his hands over his arse and ran for the hills. I didn't bother following." 

"Ho boy." Sirius rolled his eyes. "So much for that idea." 

"Yeah." 

There was a small lull in the conversation as they both took a drink of mead. 

"I guess the next thing to do," Harry continued, drumming his fingers on the table, "is to grill the clerk at the 7-11. Petunia said that's where he usually went to buy snacks – apparently she'd followed him on several occasions." 

Harry and Sirius both exchanged knowing grins. "Nosy lil' biddy, she is," Sirius commented. "Interesting how it came in handy this time. Well, good luck." 

"Thanks, I think I'll need it." With a flourish, Harry drained his glass and clapped it down upon the table. Digging through a pocket of his overcoat, he pulled out five knuts – the traditional tip for a drink, delivery, or any other minor service – and stacked them next to the glass, with the fifth knut balanced precisely on its edge on top. 

"Why do you always do that?" Sirius asked, not for the first time. 

Not for the first time, Harry replied, "Because I can." It was their ritual way of ending a conversation, and now that the ritual had been carried out, Harry took his leave. 

However, the ritual was slightly pushed aside when Sirius remembered something. "Hey, Harry?" he called out. 

Harry turned, peering inquisitively over the silver rims of his glasses. "What?" 

Sirius smirked. "Thought you wanted me to give you some advice?" 

Harry thought about this for a moment, then smirked himself and faced his godfather fully, arms folded in expectation. "That's right, I did." 

Tossing five knuts into his empty glass, Sirius walked up to Harry and put an arm around his shoulders. Together, they stepped out into the Muggle world, blending as best they could with the oblivious crowd. "So what remarkable bit of wisdom did you want to share with me? Or do I have to walk barefoot across seven burning plowshares before you'll speak up?" Harry asked. 

"No." Sirius smiled. "I only thought you should go talk to Leona." 

"Leo?" Harry stopped walking and looked at Sirius oddly. "What does she have to do with this?" 

"Nothing, really. Just that this ordeal is putting a lot of stress on you, and you need something – or someone – to clear your head. Leona seems to do that quite well, I believe." 

For a moment, Harry's eyes went a bit glassier, and his cheeks a bit redder. "Yeah… she does, doesn't she?" he murmured, smiling fondly. 

Sirius laughed. "Love's grand, eh? I'll see you later." Suddenly, he wasn't where he had been, and Harry spotted a shaggy black dog just before it disappeared around the far corner. Sighing, he played back his godfather's words in his mind, and the smile grew. 

Then it waned into a grim expression of determination. First things first, though. He stuck out an arm and raised his voice: "Taxi!" 

A black, uniquely-shaped Muggle vehicle pulled up almost immediately. Harry pulled open the back door and slid inside. 

The driver's greasy hair brought back fleeting memories of Harry's Hogwarts days, but they were banished quickly when the man spoke up. "Where to, mate?" 

"Briar Rose Lane."

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A/N: Finally, third part done, after a long interim - sorry about the wait, but with school looming on the immediate horizon (Thursday, eek!), and band camp (yes, I'm serious...) going on now, I have little time to myself anymore. I admit, not a lot happens during this part, but I didn't write it for the purposes of action and excitement; rather, to answer a couple questions and to form a couple new ones. Like, for example, who in the world is this Leona person? *grin* Actually, she was meant to be introduced in a different series, one that takes place while Harry et. al. are still at Hogwarts, but for some reason, I'm writing in reverse chronological order. So, I guess I'll just have to give a good explanation in this series, which I will do eventually - not in the next part, though, if things go the way I've planned. Sorry. =)

Thanks go to all those kind, wonderful people that reviewed the second part: Lizzy, C, Aylihael, Anne, Slaybelle, Katia, Ludo Lupin, J, Trinity Day, AngieJ, and FyFy. Kupo! =)

DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter, Sirius Black, the Leaky Cauldron, etc., etc., all belong to J. K. Rowling. Mead belongs to someone from a long time ago that had nothing better to do than to let fruit ferment to intoxicating levels, and it's my personal opinion that the world would be a much better place if he'd taken up knitting instead. The black taxi's belong to London. The seven burning plowshares belong to the witch burners of old (walking across seven of them was a way of telling if someone was a witch or not). Leona belongs to me - or will belong to me, anyway, once I introduce her (yeah, I have rights to something!). Briar Rose Lane belongs to me, too, I think, unless by some strange and unexplainable circumstance there actually IS a road called that in London. And... oh, good, that's all.

Ja ne! -_ Xavien_


	4. Too Soon, Too Late

The Seeker by Xavien

**The Seeker**  
__by Xavien

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Part 4 : Too Soon, Too Late  
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The cab let Harry off on the side of a well-lit but conspicuously treeless street, a blight that the residents had tried to cover up by planting elaborate gardens. It was about the right time of year for the flowers to bloom, so yellow daffodils and purple mums greeted him as he walked along.

The roses were still there, too, he noticed. The residents thought it cute to plant them, despite the fact they had more thorns than they were worth. Stopping in front of one of the houses, he took a long look at the messy tangles of prickles that stood vigil over Number 22 Briar Rose Lane, stationed on either side of the driveway, like sentries. These roses were, by far, the most impressive in the neighborhood. Aunt Petunia had made sure of that, he thought sourly, memories of her shrill bickering while he painfully pruned those bushes creating a tangible stink in his mind.

But he wasn't here to relive his childhood, so he moved on down the sidewalk and left Number 22 behind. A distance down the road there stood a large gas station, the numbers "7-11" glowing brightly in the dim sky of early evening. Stepping around the islands of pumps, Harry pushed open the door and entered the station.

The fluorescent lights produced a glare on his glasses, a tribute to the wholly commercial atmosphere inside the station. A gangling man with blonde sideburns tended the counter, a little square piece of green plastic on his shirt dubbing him "Joe." Harry nodded at Joe's hollow greeting but said little else, wandering over to the freezers in the back. Through the frosted doors he could see small, brightly-colored cartons of ice cream.

A small smile played over his lips as he imagined Vernon trying to hide his great bulk in a broom closet, a carton similar to these clutched protectively in his hands. Not in the mood to resist temptation, he pulled open the freezer, grabbed a carton of the cookie dough flavor, and took it up to the counter.

"Nice night, mmm?" said Joe with a friendly smile.

Harry smiled back, though thinly. "I guess," he answered, handing his ice cream over for inspection.

Joe took one look at the carton and rolled his eyes. "Ah, this stuff, hmm? Gettin' right popular, these American brands. One man comes in 'least twice a week for this 'un. Though I suspect," he added with a conspiratorial wink, "he be skimpin' on his diet every time."

"Really?" said Harry, almost not believing his luck. "Sounds like someone I know. Bald, dark mustache, pig-faced?"

"That be him," Joe said, nodding. "He some sorta relation o' yours?"

"My uncle. Actually, I've been wanting to see him for awhile now. Know where I could find him?" Harry asked, internally cringing at the blatant lie he'd never dreamed he would have to tell.

Joe shrugged. "Can't say. Last I saw of him was a week ago."

"Alright, thanks anyway."

Harry paid for his ice cream and opened it on his way out, eating it absentmindedly with a provided plastic spoon. He hadn't really expected much out of Joe, but it had been worth a shot.

Trouble was, he thought as he walked back up Briar Rose Lane, he was having difficulty figuring out what to do next. It appeared as though Vernon had disappeared on the trip back home from the 7-11, though there was little evidence of that beyond Joe's flimsy statements. It was almost as if his uncle had simply evaporated into thin air.

Or perhaps…

Harry halted in the middle of a footbridge that crossed a wide canal, staring down into the water. Perhaps he'd drowned?

He glanced along the dark brush lining the canal. The idea was certainly plausible. Vernon could've knocked his head or something and landed in the canal. It wasn't very deep, but it didn't take much to drown an unconscious man. And in this sleepy neighborhood, a body in the canal could've gone unnoticed for weeks before someone thought to look in the water.

However, Harry thought with a slight frown, this was highly unlikely. The brush on the sides of the canal was rather thick, and sported the same prickly brambles that had given the street its name. And the footbridge had sturdy handrails, made to prevent such accidents.

_Not to mention that fat floats… This thought made Harry chuckle. There was an idea – maybe Vernon had simply floated away, and was now somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic, aimlessly bobbing like some depraved buoy…_

The sounds of childish voices jolted Harry out of his amusing reverie. Looking around for a moment, he quickly spotted two small, shadowy figures huddled in the brush by the water, and sighed when he realized his conscience wouldn't let the kids keep playing in such a hazardous area. "Hey in there, come away from the water, will you?" he said aloud, moving through the soggy grass toward them.

The voices seemed to amplify when he spoke up, and as he got closer, he realized one thing: that the children in the bushes weren't giggling over some little prank like he'd first suspected – they were crying. This made Harry move even faster, rushing down the sharp incline of the flood ditch just as two small, muddy boys scrambled from within the dark tangles of brush.

"Hey, guys, what's up?" Harry said, kneeling down to look into their tear-soaked faces.

The smaller of the boys, no more than five years old, pointed a trembling hand at the bushes, lip quivering. "There'za zombie in dere."

"Zombie?" Harry said, raising an eyebrow. Somehow, he highly doubted it. He'd had a great deal of experience dealing with zombies in his work as an Exorcist – an occupation similar to that of an Auror, except dealing with primarily non-human or quasi-human targets – and knew that zombies didn't like to stray far from their final resting place if they could help it. Since the nearest graveyard was over a mile away, and bodies in the canal wouldn't escape the Police's eye long enough to manifest such a being, the chances were slim at best. But he humored the boy, anyway – after all, zombie or not, something scary was in there. "That sounds serious. Why don't you guys go sit over there while I look?" he said, pointing at a large tree a good distance away from the canal.

Shakily, they nodded, and clambered up the side of the ditch and over the crest, the little one glancing back at Harry warily before joining his friend and disappearing from sight.

As soon as they were gone, Harry pulled out his wand, held it vertically in front of his face, and whispered softly, __"Scythus."

His wand, shined holly surface glimmering in the glow of the streetlamps, expanded slightly in length and thickness as it spun into alignment in his loose grip. Then, with a slicing sound of metal across metal, a curved, wickedly sharpened blade emerged from the top of the shaft, looking as though it had been acquired from the arsenal of Death himself.

And in strange way, he thought, it sort of had. It had certainly been the end of more dark and murderous creatures than he cared to count, not to mention saved his life even more than that. His beloved weapon was one of his most complicated compositions, and the one that had most surprised his friends. Even Cho, his forever friend and fellow Composor, had gawked at him when he'd first showed it to her; then she'd shivered, asked why a scythe of all things, and gained a whole new respect for him. The same had gone for Ron ("Couldn't you've done with a nice, normal sword, mate?"), Hermione ("Honestly, Harry, what do you need with that when you've a perfectly good wand?"), and even Sirius ("And what the bloody hell do you plan on doing with that?!"). In fact, the only one who hadn't had some sort of adverse reaction had been Leona, he remembered with a small smile, recalling her giddy excitement as she'd gazed at it in wonder, obviously wishing she could hold it. He wished he could have let her, too, but then again he really hadn't felt like getting his wand blown to pieces. Too bad, though; that would have definitely put a smile on her face, and her smile wasn't the only thing he loved about her…

_Oy, Romeo, remember the Zombie? This isn't the time for sugar and spice!_ Coming to his senses, he shook himself slightly and brought his scythe to bear against the tangle of thorns in front of him. The branches fell away in clumps, and he gradually cut himself a rough path up to the water's edge.

Stopping for a moment, he looked around for the Zombie – no, not a Zombie, he reminded himself sternly – but failed to see anything out of the ordinary. He looked out across the water, both scanning the surface and peering beyond it into the murky depths, but there was nothing amiss there, either.

He chewed his lip in thought. Had the kids simply been spooked by a shadow? Probably, he concluded, almost disappointedly. Resigned, he turned to make his way back out of the brush, and only just managed to stifle a yell when he tripped over the rotting remains of a dead man.

At least, he thought after he'd regained his balance and composure, he thought it was a man. It only bore a vague resemblance anymore: dried blood mixed with maggots and other scavenging insects in the countless devastating wounds that covered it from what he thought had once been the head to what appeared to have been the feet. Indeed, it looked as though some wild animal had tried to chew the poor bastard into a pulp.

And succeeded rather spectacularly, Harry noted with a grimace, both for the dead man's sticky fate and for what he knew he had to do next. He sighed, and raised the scythe again.

"_Reducio,_" he said, and watched as the scythe blade retreated silently back into the wand, which then shrunk back to its normal size. That done, he held the wand firmly between his two flattened palms as he said, "_Vestis Lattice._" A faint white glow seeped out of the wand's tip and seemed to ooze between his fingers and all the way down to his wrists, coating his hands with a substance that solidified into something of the same nature as latex. Satisfied, he reached down and reluctantly began picking through the body, looking for some sort of identification.

After a couple uncomfortable minutes he managed to dig through the pocket of a shredded overcoat and come up with a wallet in similar condition. Harry was surprised to find, upon unfolding it, that it still had all its contents, including several credit cards and a generous amount of hard cash, albeit rather tattered. The face of some Queen or another – he really couldn't remember which – stared up at him, and would have smiled had she still possessed her mouth. He ignored her, focusing on the driver's license he'd located behind the Visa card.

"Aw, hell." Disgusted, heflung the little card into the dirt, face-down so he wouldn't have to look at Vernon Dursley's face snarling at him. For a moment, he sat there brooding, staring into the water that gently rippled in the moonlight, wishing furtively that things had turned out differently.

Reaching into a pocket of his coat, he pulled out a clear glass orb about the size of a softball, which was warm to the touch due to the bright fire that burned continually inside it. "Nathaniel Baines, via the City of London Police," he said to it, and the flames flickered obligingly as, after a moment's wait, the head of a sandy-haired, mustachioed man appeared in the glass.

"Potter, to what do I owe the pleasure?" the head said.

"Hardly a pleasure, Nate, I'm afraid. I need your Specialist Crime Department out on Briar Rose Lane. And don't forget the body bag."

Harry ducked under the "Police Line – Do Not Cross" tape that had been strung around the area and sighed, trying to keep a rein on his frayed emotions. He'd cooperated without complaint as various Pleasemen, as the members of the force's magical division liked to be called, peppered him with questions he couldn't answer, but there had been only so much he could stand in one night without exploding. Nate, of course, had noticed the signs and given him leave, which Harry had accepted gratefully, glad that he for once didn't have the depressing job of informing the family.

He glared at a young officer heading purposefully his way, who got the message and found something better to do in the opposite direction.

By Merlin, he had to get out of there.

For a moment, he blissfully thought of simply going home, falling into bed, and sleeping until noon. But then he remembered his earlier conversation with Sirius, and found he had a much better idea. Smiling in anticipation, he took out his wand and surreptitiously apparated to the middle of Ireland. 

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A/N: Wow, if I had known what listening to No Doubt's _Return of Saturn_ album would do to speed up my writing, I would've bought it a long time ago! And I have to admit, while Harry's choice of weapon was planned (now do you understand what he was doing at the metal detector in Part 2?), his thoughts on the subject just popped out of my head without warning. So, there it is, the fourth part, the one I've been working on all school year (yikes, but I know I can do better than that...). Some more things about Harry's personality are discovered, Hermione and Ron are mentioned for the first time (and not the last, rest assured, you R/H fans), and the search for Vernon comes to a screeching halt. But then, I never said that was the end of the story, not by a long shot. Oh yes, and Leona is mentioned again, too - and unless Harry splinches himself between this part and the next, she'll make her appearance in Ireland. Finally, some of you may be wondering about how my usually immaculate spelling abilities took a short vacation in the section about "composors", but in truth, I meant to spell it that way, to make a distinction between Composers, muggle music-writers, and Composors, a wizarding job of my own invention. Simply put, Composors are inventors of spells - or, "compositions". Harry, in this series, is a Composor by hobby, and quite a good one in fact, as you'll see in upcoming parts.

Thanks to all those great people that reviewed, whom I would normally list at this point, but it's almost midnight so I think I'll allow myself to slack off this one time. Sorry, I promise I won't be so lazy in the next part!

DISCLAIMER: All the characters mentioned herein are the copyrighted creations of the illustrious J. K. Rowling, may her pen never run dry. 7-11 Gas Stations are the property of whoever owns them (I guess it would be Joe, in this case - whom, by the way, I own, for what it's worth). Again, Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream is the creation of Ben and Jerry, who live in VERMONT, not Virginia as I made the mistake of saying previously - thanks to Slaybelle for correcting me on that! 

Ja ne! -_ Xavien_


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